


the boy who lived

by cosimamanning



Series: the consequences of nurture [4]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canonical Trans Character, Closeted Character, lots of harry potter references, minor Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2019-01-01 01:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12145299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosimamanning/pseuds/cosimamanning
Summary: Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs on Number 4, Privet Drive.Tony Sawicki lives tucked into a deep corner of his own heart, hidden away from the eyes of others, shrouded by a thick blanket of mulberry leaves where no one can find him.





	the boy who lived

**Author's Note:**

> hi tw for some transphobia--mostly deadnaming and misgendering because tony is small and closeted at the time of this fic and his mother is not the most understanding, but his dad is very good
> 
> some elements of this were very inspired by fun home because i recently went and saw it and it was wonderful, so i sorta imagined tony as a mix of lil butch ali + christian + john.
> 
> also tony, a tiny trans in a catholic school, was probs abt as comfortable as i was, a tiny trans in a catholic school--which is to say, not at all

_ Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. _

Tony hums happily to himself, eyes tracing over the text on the pages, one leg dangling precariously off the edge of the old mulberry tree in the overgrown back garden. His mother was much too busy to concern herself with its upkeep, and Tony liked to explore it―mind mapping out all sorts of adventures away from his mother’s disapproving eye. 

She doesn’t like it when Tony climbs the mulberry tree, either, scowls at him when he scampers through the screendoor covered in scrapes from the rough bark and tufts of green tucked into his long, unruly hair―unruliness that not even the stiff braids his mother weaves can stave out. 

Sure, the mulberry isn’t the best for climbing, but there’s a fork in the branches just  _ there  _ that’s perfect for lounging, and there’s a break in the canopy of leaves that lets the light shine in  _ just so _ , and Tony can read, undisturbed, hidden away from his mother’s sharp eyes. 

The mulberry is his friend, dependable and strong, rooted deeply in reality, and the mulberry is something that not even mother can take from Tony, he thinks defiantly.  

Tony squints up at the sun, gauging the time, and gets back to reading, skipping through the first chapter, because he knows all about Mr. and Mrs. Dursley and how wonderfully normal they are,  _ thank you very much _ . He’s read the book a thousand times by now, in his short ten years of existence, knows the opening chapter by heart.

He skips ahead to where the book starts to talk about Harry, because Harry is his favorite―why  _ wouldn’t  _ he be?

Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs, is a small boy in clothes not meant for him, with unruly hair and only spiders for friends. 

Tony likes to think he’s one-upped Harry in the friends department. He, at least, has the mulberry tree. 

Last week in school, Tony learned a new word,  _ conceited.  _ His teacher explained that it meant when someone thought too much of themselves, in a stuck-up, rude sort of way. Tony doesn’t think it’s conceited to compare himself to Harry Potter, it’s just true. 

“Antoinette!” He scowls when he hears his mother calling. “Dinner!” 

Regardless, Tony shimmers down the tree and heeds Lena Sawicki’s call, tucking his worn book under his arm as he makes his way through the overgrown vegetation. 

His mother is Polish, severely traditional, raised Catholic. 

His father is French on his mother’s side―Tony is named after his great-grandmother―and a Polish Jew on his father’s, though Tony thinks they forgot the practice after the War. His grandfather doesn’t talk about it much. Neither does  _ papa _ . 

It makes for an interesting family and interesting food. Especially interesting conversation about religion, when his parents dare broach the topic. Most of it goes over Tony’s head, but he  _ does  _ laugh when mother’s cheeks turn just the right shade of red after getting particularly flustered, like whenever Tony accidentally breaks a vase that was gifted to her by some great-aunt. 

“Were you up in the tree again?” she asks as she pushes a bowl of steaming bigos towards him. Tony just tucks into his food and remains silent―plausible deniability. 

His mother sighs her familiar long-suffering sigh and shakes her head at him but says nothing, and then his father enters the room, tall and smiling, always smelling distinctly sterile. 

“Wash your hands,” mother instructs, “no contaminating my kitchen with the dead.”

Tony’s eyes light up at the mention of them. The basement is strictly off-limits to him, as is the left wing, as that’s where Tony knows his father runs their in-home funeral home. Maintaining bodies, preparing them for showings. 

“Can I―”

“No,” his mother cuts off, before he can even finish asking, and Tony skulks into his bigos. She always sucks the fun out of everything. He just wants to see a dead body, that’s all. 

His father laughs, comes up behind Tony and ruffles his hair. 

“Ah, maybe someday soon,  _ mon loup _ ,” he promises, and Tony’s heart somersaults in the familiar way it always does when his father addresses him by the nickname, glancing at his mother out of the corner of his eye to see if she’s reacted. She never does, she doesn’t speak french, not like Tony and his father, she can’t know―

Tony wonders how his father knows, sometimes, or maybe, it is just a mistake. Tony does love wolves, after all. 

“But today is not that day,” Pascal concludes, “your mother is right, you are too small.  _ Mon petit loup _ .” He accepts the bowl of bigos from mother and kisses her on the cheek fondly. “ _ Merci, ma chérie.” _

Tony uses one hand to spoon food into his mouth and the other to discreetly flip pages underneath the table, eyes scanning over familiar, comforting words, trying his best to hide in plain sight the best way he knows how. It’s different, away from the faithful shroud of the mulberry tree’s leaves, he feels exposed, vulnerable. 

His mother walks around the table and plucks a leaf out of one of his braids, braids that are quickly falling apart, loose strands of hair flying awry. She hums, low, and Tony knows she’s upset. 

“You and that tree,” she huffs, but she doesn’t try and tell him to keep away, so Tony counts that as a small victory. “It’s not ladylike, you know, Antoinette, climbing trees and scraping up your knees. What would your  _ babcia _ say?”

Tony wants to bite back that  _ he  _ doesn’t care for things like being  _ ladylike  _ or what  _ his  _ babcia would say―old Zuzanna might be his second namesake, but Tony doesn’t care much for his names or the people who inspired them, nor their opinions. He is his own person, and won’t be a mold of anyone else. 

Instead he just lowers his eyes and keeps reading, spoon moving slowly back and forth from the bowl to his mouth, a methodical motion, careful to keep from spilling any of the dark, rich liquid on the already yellowing pages. 

“A wild spirit is good,” papa pipes up from his position, looking up from behind his glasses, “stamping it out would be unwise.” Tony peeks up from his book, eyes just barely above his bowl of bigos, ever so hopeful. His parents are engaged in a staring contest, the kind that only parents have, where they seem to be talking to one another. Tony can never understand what they’re saying. 

Mother looks dissapointed, her lips curled downward slightly in a frown, and papa’s jaw is set firmly, unwavering in his belief. Tony can never shake the feeling that his father is always in his corner, no matter the issue. 

After a while, papa dips his spoon back into his bowl and begins eating, victorious, and his mother angrily ladles herself her own bowl, sitting down a bit too forcefully. Her face softens when she sees Tony’s hesitance, though. 

“Eat your dinner,  _ myszko _ .”

He smiles at her and then continues to eat, eyes still scanning the pages underneath the table while his father and mother avoid speaking. The silence is heavy, but Tony is used to it. 

Sometimes the guilt weighs heavy on his heart, because he knows that it is his fault. He knows that his  _ mama  _ and papa love each other, and he knows they fight about him, how he acts, how he  _ should  _ act. But he can’t help how he  _ is _ . 

It’s just him.

Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs on Number 4, Privet Drive. 

Tony Sawicki lives tucked into a deep corner of his own heart, hidden away from the eyes of others, shrouded by a thick blanket of mulberry leaves where no one can find him.

“I think I’ll take our  _ petit rebelle  _ to the zoo, after dinner,” papa finally speaks, after a while, “how does that sound,  _ mon loup?” _ Tony immediately perks at the idea, because he loves the Cleveland Zoo more than anything, love visiting the snakes and hissing at them―they never hiss back, because no matter how hard Tony wishes, he  _ isn’t  _ Harry Potter―and the  _ wolves _ , Tony  _ loves  _ the wolves.

“Can we?” he looks to his mother excitedly, eyes shining and bright, and she smiles at him tightly. 

“Of course, dear, be careful not to get too much dirt on your dress.”

Tony hates it with a burning passion, hates all the dresses and skirts his mother forces him into, the uniforms the catholic school dictates he wear, so he decides to get as much dirt as possible on the horrid thing. His mother can’t force him to wear a ruined dress, after all. 

He and his father finish quickly after that, both eager to leave―Tony at the prospect of seeing wolves and papa at the prospect of getting away from mother―and pile into the sleek black car (not the hearse―papa insists it’s for funeral purposes  _ only _ ). Tony tries to sweet-talk his way into the passenger seat, but he’s still too small, lithe limbs and waifish torso, so his father confines him to the back. 

When they enter the zoo, his father takes his hand, and Tony immediately pulls him towards the wolves, and his father laughs, because he knew that’s where they would go. 

“You and your daughter look lovely together,” one woman says in passing, and Tony’s face falls, and papa must notice because he crouches down to Tony’s level, rubs little circles on Tony’s hands, so small in his. 

“You don’t have to listen to your  _ maman _ , you know,” he tells him, barely a whisper, pulled into the shade of a tree. Tony notices briefly that it’s a mulberry. Of course, it’s always a mulberry. “You can be whoever you want to be,  _ Ton _ .” Papa never calls him  _ Antoinette _ , like his mother, he calls him  _ Ton _ or  _ Toni  _ or  _ mon petit loup _ , his little wolf. Somehow, without ever having to tell him, he  _ knows _ . 

“I do not want to wear dresses, or skirts,” Tony tells him, voice shaking, and he thinks, this is what Harry must have felt like, coming out of his cupboard. It is strange, to be hidden for so long, and to finally enter the light. Scary. “Or be like  _ babcia  _ or  _ mamie _ . I want to climb trees and scrape my knees and just be  _ me _ .”

Papa smiles at him and nods, encouraging, and Tony feels brave, very suddenly, feels warmth flooding him like the first time Harry held his wand, eleven inches, holy, with a phoenix feather core. If Tony had a wand, its wood would be mulberry, with a dragon heartstring core. 

“I always wanted a son, you know,” papa says, so casually, and Tony cries into his shirt, clutching at him tightly, and papa just smiles, ruffling his hair. He never minds when it’s messy. 

There, in the zoo, Antoinette dies, and Tony is born; the boy who lived. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! thanks for reading! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, they really keep me going
> 
> come yell at me on [tumblr](danaryas.tumblr.com)


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